


One Day

by missbluebonnet



Series: The Lovely Moons [11]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Adorable Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV), Blind Character, Bounty Hunting, Din Djarin is stressed, F/M, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Married Life, Near Death Experiences, Sick Character, stormtroopers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24988495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbluebonnet/pseuds/missbluebonnet
Summary: After leaving Nevarro, the covert, and the two additions to your clan behind, the Mandalorian sets out on acquiring the bounty that will free the child from Imperial hands. The coordinates and tracking fob take you to an icy planet, and the bounty proves not to be the most dangerous part of the hunt.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & You, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You
Series: The Lovely Moons [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638400
Comments: 86
Kudos: 392





	1. One Day

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for allowing me space and time during a pretty stressful and emotional period. I really appreciate it. While it’s not over by any means, your continued encouragement and support means the world to me, and I’m so happy to give back to you with this story. I hope it continues to make you happy!

A leather gloved hand touches the back of your neck, and you flinch so violently that you knock a holopad off the shopkeeper’s counter. Din yanks his hand back as if he’s been burned, growing still at your reaction. Your face crumples when you realize you have once again floated away from the present, tangled in dreams that won’t leave while you wake and grief that won’t be shaken. You apologize profusely to the clearly annoyed vendor, kneeling down to gather the holopad and return it to its place on the counter that boasts the finest leathers and fabrics in the weapons shop. You don’t even remember what drew your interest over in the first place.

“ _ Cyare _ ?” 

You turn, feeling forlorn and dejected to face the armored man who holds a securely wrapped infant in one arm, his other hand hanging low near his holstered blaster. You blink up into the dark glass of his visor, a small sigh leaving you. He handled you as if you were made of glass, of porcelain, and you feel like he might be right.

“Would you like to sit while I finish here?” he asks, his voice so soft it’s hardly louder than a rasp. 

You nod meekly, taking the baby when he passes the child into your arms, and one hand touches your back to lead you to a small bench in the corner of the store. He hovers while you get comfortable, shifting the child so he is tucked beneath your cloak. Having few clothes to begin with, and fewer still after your favorite dress was torn on Canto Bight, Din had bought you new clothing. A thick, fur lined cloak that is almost too heavy graces your shoulders, but it is so delightfully warm and soft you loathe to take it off even indoors.

He watches you for a moment while you pull the cloak firmer around your shoulders before nodding hesitantly down toward you. He only turns when you try your best to smile, making his way back to finish his bargain for ammunition. 

You had left Nevarro two days ago, stealing away in the hours before dawn when the world slept on and time moved like sap down the bumpy bark of a tree. You had been so exhausted, so heavy in your heart that Din had to pry you away from the mumbling, sleeping children when you had whispered your goodbyes. Corde had been excited for your adventure, as she called it, wanting to hear everything upon your return. Venka had hugged you until it nearly grew too much, but that morning, they had been too sleepy to truly be sad, something you were thankful for. Din carried you halfway when your knees buckled from exhaustion, and you had slipped into a tearful rest with the child in his bed.

No amount of sleep helps, though. You know through rationality that leaving Corde and Venka in the care of the covert, under the protection of Paz Vizla is the wisest choice. You could not live if either of them were hurt because of your selfishness, but you did not consider how much you would mourn how silent the ship is now, how lonely it feels, how complex and different your lives became when they clung to your skirts or the Mandalorian’s arms.

You have not left Din’s side, fully aware of how needy you are to follow him around like a lost kitten when he tinkers beneath a panel or goes into the hull to retrieve a tool. He says nothing to deter you, seeming just as listless as you, but you almost wish he would. You think it would be better if he spoke harshly, snapping you back into place like a fractured bone. 

The baby seems even worse off. He sits at your feet, his petal shaped ears hanging dolefully as he rolls his durasteel ball against the wall so it will bounce back toward him, a sad and sorry replacement for his playmates. He turns his large, watery eyes up to you, and you scoop him up, not realizing how close to tears you are yourself. The two of you perch on either co-pilot seat at all hours, seeking the closeness your Mandalorian brings even with his back to you, piloting the ship through asteroid belts and over rings of different planets. 

_ The University of Sanbra Guide to Intelligent Life _ is balanced on your knees, your soft shoed feet propped up on one of the control panels so the baby can lean back against you more comfortably, and you read aloud to him and Din most hours, filling the ever encroaching silence with your voice until you’re hoarse. 

When you’re not in the cockpit, you are in the hull practicing with your staff. You find old, busted holsters that Din doesn’t use and fashion them into a grip that you fit on the middle of the tool, protecting your hands while you grow used to the new reach you have. It takes time getting accustomed to opening and closing the staff, but soon you are flicking your wrist and unsheathing the beskar like a saber, which fills you with an undeniable excitement. 

The first night, during dinner, you are tapping the staff against the floor of the hull while you explore the newly cleared out space. It gives you a clearer perspective of how wide the ship is, and Din is eating in the corner, sitting with his legs crossed and watching you. The child is busy reaching up for his plate, which Din must hold up in the air so the baby won’t eat so much he makes himself sick. Again.

“What happened to your first walking stick?” At your pause, you hear him clear his throat behind you. “I heard you say it was taken.”

“Walking aid,” you corrected lightly, tapping your staff’s end along the metal wall. It has a more hollow sound against the ramp, you find, than the reinforced sides of the hull, and you smile to yourself at this discovery. You explore this area, tapping lightly and muttering, “I was clumsy, broke too much with it. The Moff snapped it in half over his knee.” 

He says nothing in reply, but later that night you notice, when you are grasping his shoulders desperately, astride him as he holds you so tightly against his chest, muttering Mando’a in your ear, that he has given your staff a place of honor beside his helm. Never far out of reach.

But sleep still does not come easy. It is a battle, fueled only by nightmares of a boot upon your cheek and the child crying. You wake in the night, bullets of sweat slipping past your eyebrows and down your neck, only fairly remorseful to rouse Din by your restlessness. He assures you the child is asleep, curled beneath blankets in his pram, but you don’t deny yourself the haunted memory of having heard him cry. You half expect to find a footprint upon your cheek when you wake again, or a back broken upon a beskar helmet. 

Your dreams draw your conscience away from the present too often, enough to concern your lover who already has the world pressing down on his shoulders. You suck in a breath, shifting on the bench in the shop and pressing your cheek to the top of the baby’s head.

The intelligence given to Din when he received the fob for his bounty pinpointed the quarry on an icy, remote planet in the Hoth system. Not only would it take superior tracking skills, but neither you nor the child are prepared for the environment. He elected to stop at a small town on a moon he’d visited previously, not just to overstock his weapons’ locker but to supply you and the child with your new warmer clothing.

The bounties he collected on the Ivalice brothers had made him a wealthy man for a short time, he assured you whenever you hesitate to tell him you like something he might gift you. You are unused to being spoiled, with affection or material goods, but it seems to come more naturally to Din the longer you share his space and time. It is a queer and strange thing, seeing more of his personality when you had once only thought him to be cold and unfeeling, and it leads you to ruminate on this compassionate man beneath the armor you have grown to love handling, affixing to his body each morning and relieving him of it each night.

As you sit in the shop and listen to the vendor haggle prices, you feel the cold creeping through the windows, chilling you until you grow tired again. The child grows lethargic as well, his ears drooping and his eyes weighing heavy as he nuzzles close to your body heat. It occurs to you that perhaps his natural habitat is far removed from the ones you visit, and you wish to know more of his species, of his home. Din had told you that once, he was going to try and find the child’s people back when you were newly boarded to the Razor Crest and still shy around such a fierce warrior as a Mandalorian, but neither of you had spoken of it since.

The idea leaves you so sick, you have to actively push it away.

The thought of being separated from the child brings tears to your eyes, and you are swallowing the cries working their way up your chest when a warm, gloved hand rests on your shoulder.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Din kneels down quickly in front of you, helmet shining from the light in the shop windows, and you close your eyes against the glare, shaking your head helplessly.

The weak feeling of so many tears leaves you cross with yourself. Surely he feels some semblance of the grief you carry, and it’s not fair for you to languish in it while he’s shouldering through every task and chore to take up this job. You breathe deeply and sniffle, opening your eyes again with more resolve.

“I-I’m being stupid,” you mutter, your thumb tracing a wrinkle on the baby’s head. You wear gloves now too, dove grey and softer than his, another gift that accompanied your cloak. Din’s visor doesn’t stray from you, even when the vendor is shifting to eavesdrop out of your periphery. You clear your throat. “Are you finished?” you ask quietly.

He nods, slow to stand as if he fear you might tip forward. Tugging the cloak around you against the chill, he helps you to your feet and the three of you set out into the town. Misty, cold rain dances in the air above dirty, mud trodden streets, and you blink whenever it crystallizes on your lashes or dusts your cheeks. The baby sneezes when the mist tickles his ears, and when Din laughs at you both, you can’t help the smile it brings. 

It is a welcome distraction from your sadness, from your nightmares, and you slip your free arm through his elbow, ignoring the sheathed staff that is affixed to the sash around your waist beneath the cloak. Somehow, even now, he is a surer and steadier anchor than beskar.

The town is built up, wooden and stone structures creating a city more than a town, filled with lumber workers and animal trappers. It has a rustic quality that you did not expect for a bustling enterprise hub, and when a medcenter comes into view, conspicuous by its many windows and telltale red stripe above the threshold, you come to a sudden stop.

“I-I need something,” you say suddenly, blushing high in your cheeks. Din turns to you, curiously tilting his head when you pass the baby into his arms. You shuffle the cloak tighter around you, glancing nervously up at his shadow against the grey, overcast winter sky. 

“Alright.” His words hold no small amount of wariness. You purse your lips, understanding he isn’t going to be leaving you for this, and you sigh, gesturing towards the building. He glances between your destination and you, shrugging his pauldrons lightly, and when he speaks again, you think you hear a smile on his face. “...are you still shy?”

The blush unfurls in blatant heat, and you look away. Truthfully, you don’t think you won’t ever not be shy about such things. Dealing with your cycle, both as an indentured servant and slave, was one of the only times you were allowed privacy to yourself. You consider that, while you have shared your heart and mind and body with this man, he has never truly denied you anything. If you truly wish for him to wait outside, he will honor that.

“Do you wish me to change my nature?” you ask, shifting to remove your beskar from beneath the cloak. With a quick flick of the wrist, it stands beside you, allowing you to displace your weight properly and stand a little taller. “I don’t know if I can. I am modest in all ways of life.” 

Din chuckles, following you through the sliding metal doors, but his quiet whisper behind your ear nearly has you skidding to a stop. “You are not always so timid with me,  _ Mesh’la _ .” 

When you turn to narrow your pale gaze at him, he is retreating to a corner of the lobby, folding himself in a chair and looking utterly unbothered.

Huffing, you walk up to the counter, speaking with the female alien quietly about needing a new implant. She takes you into an examination room, and you wait patiently for a doctor, unsure now that you are alone. This town is bigger, richer than Quanera, where you had access to a small-town doctor who administered your injection quickly and quietly. There had been no fuss. This time, the doctor who comes in takes your vitals, your blood, and your heart rate climbs as she glances at her holopad with a smile.

“Nervous?” she asks. She is a Twi’lek with deep blue coloring, and you think that her eyes are gold and very kind. “Your pulse is jumping a bit.”

“I’ve only seen a doctor once,” you confess, thinking of your examination upon purchase as a slave. You resist shuddering, curling your hands in your lap. “It’s...it’s been about six months since I received my implant.” 

“That is the correct time length,” the doctor agrees, turning to her cabinet and opening the sterilized pouches with pristine gloves. “You’re very responsible to remember.”

The thought of what would happen should you forget makes your blood run cold for a moment. You have not truly thought of your body beyond a vessel, but since Kuiil extracted your chip, you have begun to appreciate things about yourself you had never paid attention to. Making choices like what clothes to cover yourself with (or not), how long or short you could wear your hair-such small things, you think, now make you feel ordinary. It is unfamiliar and altogether pleasant. Being able to go to bed with a man, with anyone of your choosing, had not been a possibility to you before. 

Now, imagining having your body overtaken by something like a new life fills you with sickness in the pit of your stomach, feels like being stolen from.

But, at the same time, after the brief moment has passed, you think of being able to lay a hand on your belly and what Din’s blurry visage might look like if you spoke those words to him. 

_ One day _ , you decide with resolution, rolling up your sleeve and presenting your arm happily to the doctor.

When you exit the examination room, you find the lobby empty. Your heart drops to your stomach, trying desperately to squint and hoping you have missed a shadow or shade that might be the Mandalorian, and you use your staff to tap against the edge of the counter, putting a hand out to steady yourself. 

“Excuse me?” you begin to ask the nurse droid, but in that same moment, the Mandalorian strides back inside through the sliding metal doors, calling your name.

Relief washes over you, and you hold your hand out to his glove when he grabs your fingers, a grin on his face beneath the helmet from the sound of his voice. “Come look,” he says breathlessly. You notice the baby is wide awake now, ears perked high from beneath the blanket he is swaddled in, and you allow yourself to be led outside to find something remarkable.

“W-What is it?” you ask when you see that it no longer rains, shying back beneath the building’s covering, but Din gently leads you out into the cold street where other people have stopped to exclaim and point with excitement.

“Snow,” he says, glancing at you as you hold out your hand where wispy flurries begin melting on your covered palm. It’s so light, dancing in the air and never seeming to truly land anywhere. You can’t quite see it, only when it’s low enough or right in front of your face, and you sneeze when a few of the flakes tickle your nose.

The baby suddenly squeals with laughter, reaching his own tiny three fingered hand up to try to catch the delicate, fluffy flakes. You can feel the cold melting on your cheeks, dripping down your neck and beneath your clothes. Din reaches over and uses the back of his fingers to brush it away.

“I’ve never seen snow before,” you say gently, holding out your palm towards the sky. The beskar staff grows colder, begins to frost, and you twist it to fold it inside itself, slipping it back onto the loose sash of your dress. Now you hold both palms out, up to the sky, feeling the small kisses of snow melt through your gloves.

“Where we’re going, you’ll get sick of it,” he chuckles, bouncing the baby on his arm gently. 

When you feel the cold on your lips, you dart your tongue out to taste it, gasping with surprise. You must stand there catching flakes in your palms and on your tongue for so long that you are surprised Din doesn’t sigh and shuffle you off. It’s only when you shiver, face damp from the floating ice, that he touches your back and says quietly that he should get you and the child out of the cold. 

You take the baby from him when you board the Razor Crest, freeing him to take care of the pre-flight checks, and you giggle and kiss away the melting snow from the child’s cheeks until he snorts and hiccups with laughter. You blot away the rest with the corner of his blue blanket, smiling. 

The small kitchenette upstairs isn’t the most modern of installations, but you are able to heat bone broth and bread, feeding the little one in the cockpit while Din pilots quietly. The familiarity of your surroundings sends you back months, thinking of when you were too intimidated to even speak, let alone sit with the armored warrior. 

Once the child is fed, you allow him to toddle about in the limited space of the cockpit, standing to stretch and noticing a surprising splash of color near the Mandalorian’s glove. Moving closer, you rest your now bare hand upon the back of his neck, reaching over to touch the blue flowers in the clay cup the child had gifted him so long ago. They had since bloomed and dried into a fragile relic, and Din’s helmet tilts toward you as you caress it.

You wish you could take Corde and Venka to that field of flowers, splattered in violet and periwinkle.

Without speaking, the Mandalorian reaches out and flips a switch, letting go of the controls before gently guiding you by your hips to sit upon his armored cuisse. His glove rests upon the flesh of your waist, curled over the firm beskar staff still hanging there, and you press the warmth of your cheek against his cold crown of his helmet.

“It is okay to be sad,” Din whispers, both of you cognizant of the little child climbing over his boots beneath your feet. “You do not have to keep it inside you, to yourself.”

Tears threaten to well in your eyes, and you swallow them down hard. You have been crying so much, so freely, that it leaves you feeling guilty. His voice carries all the grief you have harbored since leaving the covert-perhaps even more. You rest one arm around the back of his shoulders, your other hand falling over the soft space between his vambrace and pauldron.

“I do not want to burden you even more,” you whisper, your eyes drifting through the blurry streaks of stars as autopilot guides the ship through the frigid depths of space. You can see the coordinates for your destination, though you cannot read them. They are a scarlet smear of digital letters, not unlike blood upon a stone. “It isn’t fair.”

Din is silent, though you have a feeling-one that comes beyond words, a feeling that is only shared between two people who have known each other so irrevocably-that he agrees, that he understands. You rest against him, in his arms, upon his legs, and you feel yourself listing into a dreamless sleep. Fatigue has followed you these short days after departing Nevarro, and traveling into the Hoth sector, where it feels even colder somehow, has left you mellow and slow-moving.

When you wake, you are slumped in the co-pilot’s seat, and you can hear the baby chirping close by. Din is pulling the ship into land, the descent through a bright atmosphere one of the smoothest you think he has ever flown, and you smile as your hands find the soft, heavy fabric of his cloak upon you, even while you still wear your own. As your eyes adjust to the lighting of the cockpit, you find you have to squint from such a brightness you’ve never experienced on board the Crest, the light reflecting off a harsh white view.

“Where are we?” you ask softly, slow to sit up and feeling a slight stiffness in your neck.

Din’s helmet tilts to the side, but he does not turn from the observation deck, flipping several switches to activate the landing gear. The light has not reduced, and it takes you much longer to adjust. You briefly wonder if he has some kind of photo sensor detection in his helmet that neutralizes the reflection. You feel the thrusters turn on, allowing a softer landing than you expect, and as the engines power down, he finally turns his chair smoothly to face you.

The baby coos from his lap, and a laugh bursts from between your lips.

“What is that!”

Din huffs indignantly, laying a palm on top of the baby’s head. It’s covered with a thickly woven wrap to protect his ears, swaddling him like some kind of decadently coated olive. You can’t make out what it’s made of, but the dark material only allows his face to be free. His ears wiggle at your laugh and he blinks his large, innocent eyes, making you grin wider as you stand.

“It’s freezing out there,” Din grumbles, allowing you to lift the child into your arms where he immediately begins to snuggle closer into your warmth. The wrap smells like Din, you think, and you hide a smile as you press a kiss to the baby’s brow. You turn your pale eyes upon the Mandalorian’s shadow before leaning down and kissing the steel above his visor, too.

“You are a sweethearted man, Din Djarin,” you murmur, unable to keep the lightness from your voice, your movements. His hand touches your waist tenderly, only falling away when you turn to retrieve his thick cloak from the chair you vacated. “Are we to wait for you to return from bounding and sneaking across the plains?”

He ignores your teasing, standing and receiving the cloak you offer him. You watch as he affixes it over his helmet, tucking it much tighter beneath the beskar than usual. “Yes,” he tilts his helmet towards you, and you sigh a little, wishing you could see his face. Knowing and understanding why you can’t for now. “But not yet. There’s something I want to show you.” 

Your curiosity piqued, you follow him swiftly down the ladder, suddenly grateful for the thickly lined dress, woolen leggings, and thick boots he insisted upon. Din lowers the ramp, and you yelp at the sudden frigid blast of dry air that seems to frost everything around you like splintering cobwebs. You grab the baby up, burying him beneath your cloak and glaring at the Mandalorian who laughs at your scowling.

“I told you it was cold.”

Your answering glower does little to snuff out his laughter, and you allow him to tug your gloves back on one at a time, shifting the little child in your arms. It’s only when he steps out onto the ramp that you notice he has armed himself to the teeth, and his rifle is slung across his back. Once, it frightened you, but now it seems just another part of him.

Blinking against the bright light, you pull the hood of your cloak over the crown of your head before taking your staff out, comforted by the quiet clink of the beskar against the ramp as you step outside. 

The sun glares down upon a frozen, empty surface, a thickly snowy hill country, and you think the Razor Crest must be the only blot of color on the entire planet. You sniffle against the cold, realizing as you walk down the ramp that the earth is not solid.

Immediately, you sink down nearly to your knees in soft, powdery snow.

“Din!”

His laugh is loud, barking through the vocoder, and you scramble to try and step through it, only succeeding in sinking further into the drift of white crystals that are melting less than before. It coats your boots, your leggings, your dress, and you sputter and spit the fluffy crystals off your faces. 

The baby shrieks with happiness.

“Alright,” he laughs, stepping over and helping you out of the drift until you can find a place to stand more solidly. He brushes the snow coating your cloak, and you slap his elbow playfully.

“You could have warned me. That wasn’t funny.”

“You are very pretty when you are angry, though.”

Your cheeks blush hot enough to melt the speckles of snow on your eyelashes, and you duck your head bashfully, gently setting the baby down upon his feet. His tiny boots, sewn from the thick scraps of leather of Din’s worn holsters and lined with wool you’d taken from your own dress’s hem, barely leave footprints as he begins to waddle curiously. His little arms are thrust out on either side to retain his balance, ears wiggling with delight beneath his head wrap as he coos in wonder at the icy landscape around him. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you finally sniff, hovering carefully behind the child as he makes a slow ramble through the snow, one hand splayed outward just in case he falls as you lean on your staff.

Warm, rough leather hands circle your hips, and you suck in a breath as you’re pulled back against hard beskar, and suddenly you don’t feel the cold at all. The curve of his helmet bumps the back of your head where your hood shields your hair, and you swallow against the sudden rush of heat blooming in your belly.

“I’d give you my rifle for another chance to see you challenge a man with it,” Din whispers, barely audible over the gentle breeze. Your pale eyes keep hold of the tiny ball of wool that is your son, huffing and puffing as he makes a path through the snow ahead of you, but you can’t say your attention is fully dedicated to him anymore, especially when Din’s hands begin to slip beneath your cloak, tracing the curve of your waist. Even through your layers, you can imagine the path his hands make, and you are burning beneath them now.

You turn your face over your shoulder, biting your lip. “I’m still unhappy with you for not telling me about that fight,” you mutter, shuddering when one of his hands cups your breast and squeezes, firm enough to nearly have your knees buckling. “I-I won’t...be distracted.”

His chuckle vibrates through the beskar chest plate against your back, and you have to close your eyes and breathe through the sudden dizziness of feeling him firm against your backside. He rests the lip of his helmet upon your shoulder.

“Yes, ma’am.”

You both stand together, your free arm folded over his as he holds you, watching the baby giggle and flop in the snow. He face plants forward, causing the both of you to burst with laughter, and he seems intent to try to make his imprint on the ground.

Kneeling down, you scoop snow into your gloved hand, squeezing and forming it experimentally. You had never truly considered what snow was like, having hailed from a temperate and balmy climate, but the way the bright sun glimmers, nearly too much, you can see the appeal. Your breath fogs before your face, and you blow rings into the air.

And then, a sudden splatter of snow swamps you from above, and you scream.

Whirling around, you find the Mandalorian holding his middle, shaking with restrained laughter, and you take two quick strides up to him before giving him a firm shove. Surprisingly, he loses his balance and tips over with ease, falling back into the pillow of a snow drift only to laugh harder in the face of your wrath.

“You’re such a bucket-head!” you laugh, picking up your own handful of snow and lobbing it at his helmet. The satisfaction of actually aiming and hitting your mark is stolen when he continues to laugh, a deep, rich, and warm sound, sprawled in the snow and deeply unaffected by your vengeance.

Panting with giggles, the baby waddles at top speed through the icy powder, giving a wiggling hop to pounce upon his father’s chest as if to claim a prize. You plop down on his other side, thumping hard on the chest plate with the mythosaur carved in the top of your staff. 

“This is what you wanted to show us, is it?” you challenge, knowing he’s beaming under his visor. He folds his hands under his helmet as if he could simply take a nap, and you grin down at him, shaking your head. The baby moves to sit on his chest, grunting until he squeals in triumph and begins to slap his tiny hands upon the helmet like playing a drum.

“Alright, womp-rat,” Din grunts, lifting the child up high in his arms as he sits up. The baby coos, throwing his hands out as if he could fly through the air, and you giggle when you watch Din sit the little green infant upon his shoulder. He offers you a hand, pulling you to your feet with more delicacy than Paz Vizla, brushing snow off your shoulders. You smile, pushing yourself up to your toes and pressing your warm forehead against his cold one.

_ Beep-beep, beep-beep, beep-beep- _

Din tenses, his hands gripping like iron with a near bruising strength around your wrists suddenly. You blink, foggy and distant in the planes of affection and play, before you realize the soft echoing radar comes from his own person. He has gone completely still before you, the tracking fob giving off a subtle blinking red light at his hip, and as you draw your pale gaze up to him, you realize why.

On the horizon of the otherwise blindingly white landscape, there is a small smear of color in the distance, hardly noticeable at first, a blotting of red like dripped wax on paper, but you see it as it moves. Moving toward you, and Din. And the child.

“Get him inside,” Din snarls, thrusting you and the little one sharply behind him before striding through the snow like a shadow defying the bend of light, shouldering his rifle with the ease of a practiced killer. “And lock yourselves in.” 

Your heart is a panicked, fluttery thing, a frightened rabbit in the open sight of prey, and you clutch the baby in your arms, wrapping him firmly against your chest even when he begins to fuss at the jolting movements. You are clumsy, stumbling through the snow and tripping even with your staff, nearly falling several times in your attempt to get back to the ramp of the Razor Crest. It is slick with ice and snow, and you slip on the lip of the threshold, landing painfully on your knees. Fear is clawing up your throat, and you feel tears sting your eyes when the child begins to whimper over your shoulder, reaching out his tiny hands toward his father.

Using the staff to draw yourself up, you slam your gloved hand against the release switch to shut the hull, looking desperately across the tundra for a sign of the man you love, for the prey he hunts, but all you see is white.


	2. Keeping Warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mandalorian is unsuccessful in capturing his quarry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning increased for relatively graphic depictions of wounds (specifically burns).

You don’t know how long you sit and stare at the closed ramp of the ship, listening for the sounds of distant gunfire or voices. Your heart continues to pump blood angrily through your ears, throbbing at the thin veins threading your neck until your stomach curls into a thorny bramble of anxious sickness. You release a breath you didn’t realize you held, and you feel the gentle pressure on your arm draw your pale eyes away, down to the tiny child peering up at you with the sadness of a lost and worried little one in need of comfort.

It is natural to pick the baby up, to cradle him against your shoulder and kiss his head, sniffling against the fuzzy down that’s dusted between his ears. You both clutch each other, listening and waiting.

The ship is freezing, and it feels as if it continues to get colder by the second. You tug your cloak tighter around the two of you, the fabric clinging to your limbs where it’s been wet with snow. The heating system is old and unreliable, and you have to fumble with the panel to adjust the temperature, hoping it will actually pour warmth into the recycled air. You share a worried glance with the child when there comes a great, juddering sound from beneath the belly of the ship, and you sigh. 

No noise, save the wind, continues to whistle through the cracks of the ship from outside.

Din hadn’t shared the details of his bounty with you. He had once said that it’s Guild protocol not to ask questions, not to get too deep into the quarry’s life beyond the necessary information it would take to capture and deliver. He had not spoken of  _ any _ quarries to you, not since the Avalice brothers, and you think that the less you know, perhaps the better. 

You still vividly recall the strikes to your face and head, the tightness of your bindings in the fathier stables, and you wonder if ignorance would be enough to comfort you. Not knowing the truth didn’t guarantee you wouldn’t be hurt again, and as you go through the motions of preparing dinner for your little one, you decide that not knowing what Din faces is worse than risking your own involvement. You try to bring back to mind the blurry image of what you had seen in the snowy field, the small smear of red against white, how violently Din had changed from a gentle and loving man to a deadly, unfeeling hunter, and you shiver harder than before.

You and the child usually share meals, but you can’t find an appetite. Your stomach is still tight with worry, hands shaking if left idle, so you sniffle against the cold and draw your cloak around the baby while he drinks soup from his favorite cup. The two of you are curled as close to the air vent as possible, the pitifully warm air doing little to chase away the chill. 

When he has finished eating two helpings, you close the two of you in the refresher and run hot water into the sink until it steams the mirror and fills the small cubicle with humidity. The hot water is a precious commodity, but as the sun dips lower in the sky and darkness overcomes the world outside, the ship is practically icy. You don’t know where Din is, how long it will take him, or what, if any, trouble he may encounter, so drawing a small bath in the sink for your little child takes your mind off of those terrible ideas for a short time.

The soap is a gentle, milky emulsion of honey and herbs, and it makes the water froth with bubbles as you draw it through your hands to gently wash the baby, taking special care to clean his ears, hands, and feet. The steam curls the hair around your face, and when the child giggles and smacks the bubbles, they catch in your hair like the snow Din had dropped on you.

Wrapping him into a towel, you dry and dress him in the thickest garments you have, bundling him in his favorite blue blanket that smells of his father from how often he rocks the little one to sleep. 

No amount of rocking soothes him this night. The closer he gets to slipping into dreams, the more he fights it, fussing against your breast and clutching at your dress. You avoid your shared quarters with Din, knowing it is too cold, and you don’t open the doors of the cockpit, too scared that someone outside might see the movement through the observation windows. Though, you desperately wish that  _ you _ could see through them, wish you could look for any movement outside.

When the baby finally settles, you tuck him into the pram with yet another blanket and his stuffed bantha, hoping the insulation will retain the warmth better than your own body heat can. You push the pram into the medical bunk and close the door, hoping to block the cold air, and you lay a hand against the smooth steel. You yearn to climb into the uncomfortable medical cot, curling your entire body around the little one and drifting off to sleep with him, but your fears won’t let your mind settle. You can only think of the Mandalorian outside in the dark, and the gnawing sensation of something horrible won’t leave you. 

You begin pacing the length of the hull again, rubbing your eyes, your brow, your face until it feels raw and pinched. You pass a short amount of time practicing movements with your walking aid, familiarizing yourself with its reach and the sounds it makes against the different spots against the walls and floors. When you grow weary, you retrieve the thick fur and blankets from the bed of the captain’s quarters and bring them back down into the hull, making a small cocoon near the air vent and settling down. You tug your gloves back on your fingers, admiring what you can make out of the soft leather. Your staff remains at your side, fully extended and gleaming in the low light. 

Sleep is on the edge of your mind, just out of reach, and you focus on your breathing, letting whatever idle thoughts topple through come and go. You consider how much this ship, as cold and dark as it can be, has become your home. Once, it was an overarching shadow that made you tremble, but now it feels like a sanctuary, a respite from the outside world. As much as you miss the covert and yearn for that communal kinship, the desire to move, to wander, has planted itself in your breast. You can only hope that once this is over, you might wrap your arms around Din’s neck as he pilots, resting your temple against his helm and savoring the freedom of greedy men.

It’s unclear to you when you fall asleep, because suddenly the harsh knell of a fist against the hull’s door wakes you. It is slow, solemn, heavy.

_ Bang. Bang. Bang. _

Whoever it is wears armor upon their hands, not the soft leather gloves you are accustomed to. It is not a weapon or object being hurled against the hull either, and you suck in a breath upon the realization that someone is standing on the other side of the door. And it is not Din.

You are terrified to move, your back against the wall near the air vent. Your breath trembles with clouds in the cold air, and you bite on your lip to keep yourself quiet. The heating system has shut off, and you remember Din once mentioned that the systems would automatically expire after a period of inactivity-some kind of energy saving program to help conserve fuel. 

The wind is howling outside, rushing against the metal siding, and you know if you don’t get the heat on soon, you’re likely to lose the feeling of your fingers and toes. You push yourself up, slowly and carefully, pressing your palms flat against the wall behind you. Blood rushes through your limbs, waking them from rest, and you don’t hear any retreating footsteps from the door.

If it was Din, he wouldn't knock.

If it was Din, he’d call out for you.

If it was Din, you wouldn’t be afraid.

Your eyesight is poor in the dim lighting of the hull, and you don’t feel safe enough to try and turn on the overheads. You don’t need light, however, to find the release to open the Mandalorian’s weapon locker, nor do you need to look for the shined and oiled WESTAR-34 gifted to you by Rhalaz and Briinx. Your hands shake as you hold the weapon with both hands, bracing your back against the wall across from the door, and you draw your breath from deep in your stomach. You close your eyes and focus all your attention on the sounds.

You hear the howling wind, the icy creaks of the ship shifting and settling, and then, you hear something else. Metal upon metal, as if that armored glove is dragging across the outside of the hull, feeling for an opening, for a way to get in.

Braced against the wall with the blaster drawn between both your hands, bones shaking and muscles aching from the cold, you don’t know how long you stand in the dark. Thoughts shuffle through your mind at such a speed it leaves you dizzy. Will a blaster bolt stop someone who is armored? If you cannot protect them from getting in, what will you do? You don’t know of a way to contact Din, uneducated in the communication software the Razor Crest is equipped with. And even if you were, is it safe to use when others are nearby?

But you become aware of a release in pressure, after a long time of listening and dreading, and you’re not sure how you know that the presence outside has retreated, but you do. 

It’s as if the entire galaxy is focused upon you and your child for an agonizing stretch of the night, until suddenly it recedes, stars settling and moons turning back into their orbits once again.

Your breath continues to cloud the air in front of you, and your teeth begin to chatter now. When the engines are running, the air recycling system keeps the ship warm in deep space, insulating from within, but you are unsure how long it’s been turned off. 

You don’t set the blaster down, shutting the weapons locker as an afterthought and crossing the hull with stunted steps. You leave your staff behind, climbing into the upper deck of the ship and opening the cockpit. You can’t be sure it’s safe to do, but the unknown-the lost, floating uncertainty of everything is too much to bear. 

When the doors slide open, you squint in the blue tinted pre-dawn light, feeling your way to the pilot’s chair and settling in it, running your gloved fingers through the motions. You make a mental list of the pre-flight checks, knowing you will be spending precious amounts of fuel to burn the engines this way, but you are unsure now if you fall asleep that you will wake up again.

The engines are a soothing sound, the quiet flare of power beneath the ship reminding you of the earth growing organic life, a familiar and safe sensation as the gentle hum vibrates imperceptibly beneath your feet. The threat of an intruder seems like a far off nightmare now, only on the edge of your periphery, and you wonder if it is because you haven’t truly slept. Your instinct is to retrieve the baby, to crack open his pram and scoop him up into your arms, but you know what little heat he has is precious. You risk it if you expose him now.

So you curl into the pilot’s chair, tugging your cloak as tight around you as possible and wait for the heating system to begin chasing the chill away. You let your eyes focus and unfocus on the distant horizon through the observation windows, admiring the hues of blue and purple and gold. It reminds you of the flowers on Quanera, of the first time Din trusted you completely with his son, and salt gathers in your eyes against the powerful memories. 

When the first tear pearls big enough to slip down your cheek, it releases a torrent of things you remember-the way he held you after he killed Toro Calican, the sound of the child breathing and sleeping upon his chest in the dark of the cockpit, the quiet, reserved motions of slipping into bed beside you every night with all the respect of a saint for their deity. 

You wonder if your mother loved your father with such a depth, such a wrenching ache that you can hardly breathe to think of it. It hurts, a pressure bearing down upon your chest, and when you part your lips it tears a gasp from your throat. You press your head back against the chair, a small smile teasing the edges of your lips, and more tears slip down the sides of your face.

You haven’t truly considered the feelings you’ve harbored and nurtured until now, and it all unleashes with happy tear trails. It feels as if you have an answer for every question, somehow. A piece of a puzzle that has finally locked into place, you turn your face against the pilot’s chair and smell clean, cold woods.

It is when you start to doze before the lavender fingered dawn that you feel the shuddering of the ship beneath you, and your eyes fly open at the familiar sound of the ramp lowering. In your haste to throw yourself out of the chair, your legs tangle in the cloak and you nearly drop your blaster, but you brandish it between both hands as you approach the port of the ladder that descends into the belly of the ship. 

Suddenly beading with a cold sweat, you hold your breath, listening intently to the sounds of a muted shuffling across the metal floors, soft grunts and harsh breathing, and then the ramp is closing just as soon as it nearly lowered completely. The ship seems to settle once more, and there’s nothing you can hear over the wind outside.

Then, you hear a sudden, heavy thud, and it might as well be your heart.

Scrambling down the ladder, your boot slips when it catches the hem of your dress, and you fall the rest of the way to land on your ankles. You feel a painful jolt from the impact up your legs, but it is a passing thought when you whirl around in the dimly lit space. There is a darkened mass quivering near the carbonite freezer, and at first you think it to be an animal of some kind until you hear the quiet static of the modulator catching on a painful drag of air.

“Din?” you whisper, slipping the blaster in the back of your sash, approaching the freezer with caution. You tilt your head downward, hoping to make out anything as you slowly kneel down and take off your gloves. “Are you hurt?”

It is so difficult for you to see, but the light catches his beskar well enough. You move to take his helmet with one trembling hand, but his own shoots out and latches onto your wrist so tightly you yelp. 

“D-Don’t,” he hisses, letting you go with shaking fingers. He’s slumped against the wall, uses one hand to grapple with the hidden release of his helm before tearing it off. It hits the floor with a solid crunch, ice chipping off the steel and rolling along the corrugated grooves of the floor. You watch it roll until it comes to a stop somewhere down near the exit ramp, and you turn your eyes back to him, his hair matted with sweat and sticking to the blurry edges of his face.

He’s pale, you see immediately, almost as pale as the snow coating his clothes. You try to reach and help him take the armor off, but he bats your hand away again, growling as he rips off a pauldron, fumbling with his chest plate, peeling off the cuisse of his legs. “F-Frozen,” he whispers from between teeth. “It’ll b-burn.” 

You suck in a breath, watching as each heavy piece of steel hits the ground with a slicing ring, not unlike some great beast losing its scales. You push yourself up on shaking legs, locating the crate you had been organizing a few days prior and retrieve a medkit. Once he’s torn his vambraces from his arms, you kneel back down, reaching out to remove his gloves and going still when you feel holes eating through the leather.

“W-What is this?” you ask, turning your face up to him. His eyes are like black holes against his ashen face, and you realize he’s trembling so hard, so violently that he can’t speak. You yank the glove off and jump when he yells in pain. It’s not apparent to you what’s happened until he bends over his newly naked hand, and you can see the shoulders of his woven undershirt and how they are also splattered with holes.

No. No, in fact, his shirt is barely hanging onto his frame at all.

Your eyes widen, and you can’t stop the automatic reaction of shuffling forward on your knees, quick to grab his arm when he tries to pull away from you. 

At first, you don’t understand what you’re looking at because the lack of light is so watery in the hull that it seems his shirt has been worn away in places, wet in other spots until it shines beneath the light. When he lays his hand upon your knee, you look down and see it better.

His back is burned, lashes of brutal red welts becoming discolored from the extreme temperatures outside. There are blisters forming through the holes, and what you thought appeared to be melted snow is actually blood. 

“L-Lay down,” you whisper, your voice cracking as your heart begins to beat out of rhythm in a terrible, frantic tune. You have to help him, his body clumsy and heavy. Din slips the rest of the way and coughs when his cheek meets the floor, his entire body juddering like the engines of the Razor Crest when they stall.

You might pass out, you think, staring in horror at his back. Perhaps be sick.

Once, you’d seen a servant burn their hand by taking a cast iron skillet from a fire, and it had not left any skin behind. Now, looking at the man beneath you, fear almost swallows you whole. 

He is going to die, if not from his wounds, than an infection.

It’s only when his hand reaches out, trembling and weak to touch the hem of your skirt that you ignite. You throw yourself forward, grabbing at his boot and finding the blade he used to once cut your own dress from your body. You move carefully, kneeling beside his hip and finding the ruined lip of his shirt near his collar, and you are thankful he keeps his blades so well-oiled once more. It cuts the fabric like butter, and you go slow so that you don’t accidentally pierce his skin, cutting the shirt from his arms first and then the top of his shoulders. 

The heat has finally circulated through the ship enough to chase off the worst of the chill, so when he begins to shiver even harder, you know it is not from the cold.

“Din,” you whisper, setting the knife down and bending towards his face. You lay your fingers to his cheek, your stomach falling when you find his eyes closed. “Din, you have to stay awake.” 

His breath comes out in a grunt, his face twisting in pain. He whispers through his teeth again, “‘m awake.”

Turning, you throw the medkit open, finding electrolyte tablets by their bright yellow pouch and tear it open. You had read an old medical book as a teenager, finding every braille book you could get your hands on in the Moff’s extensive library. Braille is often only found in the driest and most rudimentary genres, but now you are thankful. You are by no means a healer, but you know enough that he is going into shock. You force his lips apart and shove the electrolyte tablets between his teeth, making a noise when he doesn’t respond.

“Chew them!” You yell, your voice becoming shrill in your panic. He needed water, too, but you didn’t want to leave him so you cup his chin and give his head a tiny shake. “Din!”

He grunts, and it takes him too long for your liking, but you can hear the soft clicking of the tablets breaking between his teeth. You turn back to the medkit and find several small glass bottles. You can’t read the print on them, and you struggle to find anything your eyes can make out aside from a syringe. 

If you could fly the ship to a port, to a medical center, you would, but you  _ can’t _ . There’s no way you can make it with your limitations beyond getting off the planet, and that wouldn’t be of any more help than being stuck here. You squeeze your fingers around the bottles before leaning back towards his face, tapping his cheek with your fingers.

“Din, open your eyes,” you say, soft and gently prodding. “Please, my love, I need your help. You have to tell me which of these is the anesthetic. I can’t see it.” 

It’s good, you think, when he makes a heroic effort to lift his lashes, that you can keep him awake this way. If he falls asleep now, you know he will never wake up again.

“Is it this one?” You hold it up. He is too weak to shake his head, so he simply closes his eyes, and you want to cry. You truly do, but instead you hold another bottle in his line of sight. “This one?”

You do this for several turns before he grunts, lips pressed firmly and jerking his head in affirmation. You stab the syringe into the bottle, drawing the anesthetic as much as you dare and look back down at his back. 

It will hurt, no matter how much you can give him, you realize, but removing the rest of his shirt will be the hardest part for both of you. You lay one hand on the back of his head to both steady and comfort him, and you slip the needle beneath his skin, biting your lip as you release the plunger. Once you’ve set those tools aside, you pick the knife back up and shift forward again.

“A-Alright,” you whisper, sniffling against the cold and your nerves. There is a tight, painful knot in your throat, but talking seems to ease the discomfort. You hope it might be of some comfort to him, too, might keep him awake. “I-I have to remove the rest.”

He says nothing, only seems to be focusing on breathing, so you take that as the only bit of encouragement you’ll get, and you use the knife’s tip to fold the top of the shirt backward. You aren’t sure if it’s your eyesight, the light, or the fact the burns are so spread out, but the shirt does not cling to the skin as terribly as you suspected. His gloves must be giving him more pain, you think, as you peel away the ruined, bloodied tunic and he does not move, save for a twitch of his boot.

The pattern against the golden skin of his back reminds you of fingers, licks of blood and blisters that gleam wetly under the faint yellow light. For a moment, looking upon the wounds, you feel as if you’re choking, a surge of terror rising in your throat. 

It’s too much, you can’t do this,  _ how are you supposed to do this? _

Your hand grasps your throat, staring blindly at his ruined back while your other hand lays atop his own that weakly grips the hem of your dress. He is close to falling unconscious, close to never waking up, and a small voice within reminds you that if he had chosen someone else in that dirty, dusty cantina, they would know what to do.

His fingers twitch beneath your hand, a small movement that snaps your attention to the present like a hook reeling in a fish. You clamber up to your feet and cross the hull, movements muted and succinct. You take a cloth from a cupboard and dip it under a stream of cool water, sniffling and realizing you’ve been crying the whole time. 

You ignore this and march like a stormtrooper back to the wounded man on the floor, rolling your sleeves up and kneeling like a supplicant before an altar. 

It has been years since you read the medical book in the Moff’s library, but burns are a nasty business and are not easily forgotten. You knew better than to let the water run into the wounds themselves, nor did you disturb the blisters that could be disastrous. You cleaned the blood away, sniffling persistently as you worked. It was easy to do, uncovering the gold beneath the red.

Din grunts under your administrations, though you couldn’t be applying more pressure than a feather. The silence is suddenly too much for you, hearing his muffled noises of swallowing his pain. You want to fill the empty space before it makes you scream.

“Do you know how I knew those flowers weren’t poisonous?” you ask suddenly, thinking of Quanera and the fields of blue and purple flowers, of the baby that had babbled and happily given you and his father blooms of his choosing. “It’s all in the number of leaves. Though with all the frogs and lizards your son eats, I don’t think a flower would bother him much.”

You want to demand who did this to him, make him answer for this atrocity, but you can feel the fist he makes beside your leg, knowing how much it is costing him just to remain awake while you retrieve a bacta spray from the medkit. You pray it will be enough, pray it will flush out any chance of infection from the snow.

“Some flowers,” you go on, administering the spray from the base of his spine upward. It’s a fine mist that doesn’t make any noise, but you can see the muscle beneath the burned skin tense when he whimpers, burying his face against the unforgiving grooves of metal in the floor. “Some flowers become poisonous. Did you know that? When you make tea out of them and let them set overnight, they can become deadly.”

As if delicate things could turn dangerous, given enough time.

He will have scars, you think. Scars over the untouched planes of ochre skin you had caressed and felt when he made love to you. It breaks your heart when you reach the top of his shoulders, the back of his neck, feeling the charred ends of his curls where the fire has singed so much away. You know the burns cover the crescent moons your nails had once left, tokens of love and desire no longer bearing the evidence of the first time he put his mouth on you.

“S-Stop,” Din whispers, his voice no more than a hoarse rasp. He sounds deathly, faint and hanging onto the last vestiges of his energy. “Please, stop,  _ Cyare _ , it hurts.”

“I’m almost done,” you implore, biting your lip. There is a small canister of burn salve in the medkit, meant for minor wounds from the sun or being in the kitchen. You don’t know if it will have any effect, but your limited knowledge prevents you from not trying anything. You scoop the salve out, careful to use it on the worst parts because there is so little of it. 

You are halfway down his back when suddenly he begins trembling from head to foot so hard that you can hear his teeth knocking together. Your arms hang still, your eyes rolling upward to his whitened face.

“Din?”

You set the canister down, moving until you can turn his cheek upward. Sweat the size of slugthrower bullets wet his face and dampen his hair, and his eyes are squeezing tightly shut. Every word is forced, breaking in desperation. “T-Too much,” he whispers, and you think you see him bite his lip, marble teeth piercing flesh. “‘S t-too mu-much-”

You don’t know, then, if he is going to live. The tears that washed your face and the panic that you had swallowed both come back, and you grab his hand between both of yours, holding his burned fingers to your lips. “You said I wouldn’t be without you, don’t-! Please, please don’t-don’t leave me.”

But then, he does.

It’s not sudden or dramatic, like you have always imagined something like death is. In fact, it is quiet, soft, and quick, a gentle brush of air that disturbs the hem of your dress, and his entire body goes slack against the rough metal floor.

“N-No, no-” Your hands cup the back of his neck quickly, your other hand turning his face enough to pat his cheek. His eyes flutter, but no breath disturbs your fingers from beneath his nose. “ _ Din! _ ”

Tears the size of credits well in your eyes and begin falling, soaking your cheeks as you pat desperately at his face, his shoulder, his arm, whimpering when he continues not to move.

“Wake up-” Your lungs catch on the words, swallowing and choking on them like some kind of live creature wriggling between your ribs. Your mouth breaks open on a silent, raw sob, shaking his shoulder faster, harder, blinded by brine and panic. You draw his head into your lap, desperately trying to get him to wake, whimpering against the charred, sweat dampened black curls at the crown of his head. You rock him quickly, hoping touch will somehow bring his tattered, bloodied spirit back to you. “-You said, you promised-you said you would be here,” you choke, squeezing your eyes closed and bending over his head. “Y-You promised!”

If you just hold him tighter, you think wildly-so, so blind-he will wake up. He  _ will _ .

And then, he does.

This time it is sudden, harsh and visceral like a fish breaking the surface of a choppy ocean. His arms strike out on either side of him, and he chokes on his own breath, gasping and coughing into the soft fabric of your skirt. You jerk backward, stunned and eyes widened to look down at his broken, torn body.

There, tucked near his side, you find the tiny green child pressing his two three-fingered hands against his father’s flank. Your heart will surely come up, you think, staring in awe at the little one’s ears twitching, his eyes narrowed into slits of concentration.

You are too shocked, too indignant in what you conceive to be happening to react. Din clutches at your lower half in desperation, and you watch in fearful rapture as the torn, burned flesh of his back is slowly knit together. Blisters melt away like water, the deeper slashes the fire left behind sewing themselves as if there had only been too much sun shining upon the son of Mandalore. 

The child falls over abruptly, and you have to reach forward to catch him before his tiny head connects with the hard steel grating. His skin, upon closer inspection, is pale, a sickly non-color that makes you feel queasy, and he lays against your shoulder as if he is overheated, panting quietly. You cup the back of his head, turning your own ashen face down upon the Mandalorian.

He lays panting too, his entire body now drenched with sweat. His eyes are still shut tight, but the air flowing through his nose in harsh puffs gives you enough strength to stand on shaky legs. You find the medical bunk opened, the pram’s shutters parted like a well-cracked egg. You don’t know how he managed to get out of both, but you lay him inside the pram once more, pressing your hands against the steel wall and taking a deep breath.

Din’s back is smooth once again, save for a small spattering of scars you’ve felt before. His skin is heated, and you wonder if the child had to stop short, couldn’t quite draw out all of the damage. You had seen workers at the Moff’s estate with burns from the sun, spending too much time outside. You don’t know how long you sit beside him, your hand petting the middle of his back.

You  _ do _ know that when he wakes, he will tell you everything that happened.

You also know that whenever you sleep, your blaster will be within your reach.


	3. Blood Running Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bounty boards the Razor Crest while Din is hurt and the child is incapacitated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, it’s been a spell! Thank you all so, so much for leaving comments! It’s been so nice to check back in every now and then and know I haven’t been forgotten while my body betrays me. This chapter has been written for a while, but I could not get myself together to actually edit it because of how poorly I've been feeling. I hope it still delivers and that you all enjoy reading. 
> 
> Special shout-out to mandhoelorian for guessing who/what Din’s special bounty is. Read more to find out!

There is nothing quite like hunger. When you were abandoned as a young child, eating unripened berries, questionable plants, and bugs with too many spindly legs to survive, you remember the pain in your belly, the cramps that seemed to strangle you so tightly they would lift you off your feet. Hunger, like any pain, is a constant throb, a dull ache, something that sinks its hooks into the mind and slows time until it suffocates. 

You should eat, you know. You have not put food in your mouth in nearly two days, but the very idea of anything that isn’t a prayer passing your lips makes you feel sick enough to struggle just to keep water down. Your fingers begin to shake as you mend shirts, closing up holes and tears like wounds. 

The child is still unconscious, unmoving like a stone, with a clammy perspiration on his wrinkled brow that soaks his blanket in the silently floating pram. You check on him until the inside of your shoes wear against the delicate skin of your ankles from walking back and forth. You have not been without him before, not since your freedom was bought, and the black hole of silence that fills the metal void of the Razor Crest makes your nerves feel raw and exposed.

Din is still unconscious and unmoving, too. You had been able to wrestle him to his feet, buckling beneath the near-dead weight of him before bullying him onto the medical cot. You remove all the beskar beforehand, of course, and still he is heavy enough to cause you to pull a muscle when you try lifting him. You strip him of his torn, burned clothing and bring down the blankets from the bed in the captain’s quarters, knowing to sweat a fever will help. You can’t be sure what the fever is from, though, be it his healed burns or having stayed in the elements for so long. He’d been conscious long enough for his eyes to blink open, his brow dripping sweat into his gaze before pressing his sticky forehead to your own in relief.

Then, he passed out again.

In the afternoon, when the sun is at its peak, you risk opening the hull and collecting snow in the beskar chest plate like an oversized bowl, packing it tightly in clean cloths and keeping it on Din’s back and a cold wet rag on his forehead when his fever waxes and wanes.

Even when he is at his most alert, his most talkative, he is a quiet man by nature, but his presence fills the emptiness with familiarity that you now miss. This silence that the child and his father leave behind in their sickness is like a well with no bottom, cold and deep and dark, and you do your damndest to distract yourself.

You try to clean a little, though it doesn’t hold your interest, still allowing your mind to wander back to those breathless moments when you were alone in the world without him. You wake from half sleep throughout the night, head throbbing and mad with grief that he might still be gone. But, you curl against the wall, tucked across from the small medical bay where he lay asleep, his back rising and falling with steadier breaths each time you look upon him.

It is not so much his dedication and loyalty to you, but the companionship you two have fostered over these long weeks. You had never had such a person to fill your day with, to listen to you and respect you. It occurs to you, looking down at the half mended shirt now splotched with your tears, that Din Djarin is your dearest friend. The quiet revelation leaves you hiccupping with loneliness, and you put away the needlework in frustration.

The burn salve takes away the last sting of heat and redness upon his back, and when you trace your hand over the lovely slope and dip of his shoulder, all you feel is cool, smooth skin. You cup both Din and the child’s face while they sleep, holding a cup to their cracked lips to slip water down their throat. It is met with no resistance, and you worry even more when they will wake up.

Using melted snow for water becomes a welcome distraction. You find it’s easier to melt and boil for clean water than wasting the reserves on the Crest, though you slip a few times, falling hard on the metal exit ramp from the slickness of your boots. Face flushed, you’re thankful no one is around to see, scowling at your own lack of balance and clumsiness. 

Day turns into night, and with it comes that awful, echoing wind that beats against the outside of the ship. You turn the engines on enough to recycle the warm air that chases the chill away, working to clean and organize the crates twice over until you’re damp with sweat and aching in your arms and legs. It is hard, fumbling with things in the dark with such poor sight, but you dedicate yourself to it. Creating distractions is more difficult than the chores you come up with, but it tires you out enough that your eyelids grow heavy. You take a turn around the cockpit, turning everything off now that the ship is warm enough to last through the night, and you close the doors. 

It is easier for you to navigate your surroundings if things are kept a certain way. Doors closed, cabinets shut, things put away in their place. You are lucky that Din is naturally an organized and overall neat individual, and you’ve found he prefers his own things-weapons, food, clothes-kept tidy and stored. You imagine you’d be at your wit’s end if you had to keep bumping or tripping into things, and for a moment, as you stare down at the sleeping man in question, you wonder if he’s always been that way. Was he a particular little boy who grew into a particular man?

Or did he become one? For the child? For you?

The pram is just beside you, and you find yourself smiling, grimacing over the notion that you are the one sleeping nearest the door now. You are sleeping on the floor, beside the medical cot, but you are still the one nearest any possible danger.

You wonder what Din would think about that if he was awake. You hope he would be proud.

Sleep comes easily, but rest remains elusive. You feel as if you sense everything around you as you doze, never fully slipping into the dark deep of dreams. Perhaps that is just as well, you will think later, when an eerie sound of metal scraping metal drags you back to consciousness. For a moment, you think it is the child, awake and dragging around some tool or getting into playful mischief once more, but as you listen, you realize the sound is coming from outside the hull.

A tinny, high pitched shriek of steel on steel, as if the very ice is sinking its teeth into the ship, and you fumble to sit up in the bulky tent of your cloak, blinking blindly in the near darkness. 

It stops suddenly, and you look towards the door before a terrible crash nearly shakes the hatch off its hinges. It rattles the very teeth in your head, and you struggle to suddenly stand, your heart thundering against your breast in terror. Another heavy crash, a heavy, metallic ramming that you feel in your chest and _hurts_. Something is being thrown against the hatch, and this time, they will get in.

The first thing that comes to mind is how your father had picked you up from playing with a worn, threadbare cloth doll when your family home had been stormed, and it is in your genetics, you think, to put your hands on Din’s shoulders as he lay sleeping. His eyes flutter, delicately long lashes kissing his cheeks. There are not many places to hide on the Razor Crest, built efficiently and with military power in mind. There is suddenly too much open space and not enough-

Crawl space.

You drop to your knees and feel along the corrugated metal flooring until your fingertips come into contact with the latch set flush into the floor. Din had once told you to mind your step in the hull, and often would call that he was working on panels and wires hidden beneath so you would not trip and fall in. You wrestle the latch open, sliding and pushing it up to open the small covering. You can feel with your arm it’s barely big enough for one person, and you make up your mind without a second thought, turning back to the sleeping warrior and throwing one of his arms over your shoulder.

His entire body is burning with fever again, and your knees buckle halfway across the floor beneath his weight. He wears no armor, but he’s still nearly too much for your spasming muscles to bear. You hold onto his shoulders, then his arms, bullying him into the crawl space until his legs fold beside him. Then, you let him drop softly against the metal wall. Every move you make is clumsy, rushed with panic and shaking with uncertainty from being unable to see.

You lift the baby out of his pram next, swaddled in his blue cotton blanket, and as an afterthought, you grab the beskar helmet that lays inside the medical cot. You affix the child until he is nestled in Din’s lap, folding yourself in half to reach beneath the floor so that you can let the helmet fit and slip over his head. If you are discovered, you think, his face will be protected, at least.

There is a sudden, shuddering movement that seems to rock the entire ship, and you catch yourself before shutting the crawl space again. It’s followed by a loud whirring sound, like an electric tool being dug into the side of the hull. With man and child stowed beneath your feet like cargo, you struggle to stand, planting your feet firmly over your racing heart. You can’t hide in the cockpit, the fresher, or the medical bay closure-it all seems too obvious.

There is a sickening shriek of the sound of metal bending, and your eyes settle on that darkened part of the ship Din had told you to never go near. Taking a quick breath, you grab the amban rifle and your staff, securing the latter to your side and the former over your shoulder, and you march into the darkened corner.

It only takes you three slippery steps to reach the carbonite freezer, the durasteel plated frame for the next bounty hanging like a cold slab for a dead body. You’re just the right size to slip behind it, the metal painfully pressing against every soft curve you have.

Just as you yank the rifle to your side, the hatch of the Razor Crest is wrenched open, falling open with a deafening thud.

You lift your free hand and cover your mouth, sweat pooling from your brow and dripping into your eyes as you try and catch your breath silently. Heavy boots hit the hull’s flooring, and you close your eyes tightly.

The pacing pauses, and you can hear noisy breathing through a helmet. There is a series of clicks, perhaps on a handheld device of some kind, or even on a weapon. You can’t be sure, but you focus on picturing the sounds in your head rather than your encroaching panic.

The heavy footfalls resume, moving away from the freezer. A slam shakes the entire ship, and you think whoever it is has opened the fresher. A few more footsteps precede another rattling crash, which you know is the medical cot being shoved back into the bay. 

Whoever the intruder is, he is searching for something.

You can hear his lumbering footfalls climbing the ladder, and you’re tempted to move. The sudden blast of icy air from outside hits the paneling of the carbonite freezer, and you feel it in your bones. Frost crackles and splinters, beginning to coat the metal of the inside of the ship.

Loud noises from the upper deck make you jump, cabinets being flung open, objects being thrown, walls being shaken. The ship itself is safe from being taken, the main controls linked to Din’s vambraces, and the rest of his armor is safely stowed in one of the crates beneath medical supplies.

You hear it when the intruder’s boots slam into the ground as he slides back down the ladder. He must be a well built warrior, or perhaps his armor is just heavy. His pace quickens with frustration as he walks the length of the hull, shoving aside boxes and supplies with an angry urgency. 

It’s when you can hear the pacing nearly directly across from the freezer that you can’t contain your need to know any longer. You press your head to the side, listening to the rousing sounds of crates being broken open and supplies being thrown around the hull. You peer between the gap of the steel plate and the inside of the freezer.

Even blind, you know the blinding white armor of a stormtrooper when you see one.

Though, this is a different set of armor, slashed with deep crimson along the joints and helmet, and the weapon he carries is nothing like you’ve ever seen before. It’s nearly as long as Venka is tall, wide of barrel and heavy with artillery. It connects to an odd, black pack on the soldier’s back, but you can’t make out any details. You slip your head back behind the metal plate, heart racing when you hear the trooper’s boot connect with the side of one of the crates, cracking it in fury.

He snarls curses that have you red to the tips of your hair, and you listen with slow encroaching joy as he storms towards the hatch. 

You drop your head forward against the steel plate in thankfulness, but the hinge holding it to the ceiling gives a quiet creak.

Immediately, the stormtrooper stops walking.

Blood running cold and your fingers gripping the body of the rifle, you move as slowly as you’re able, breathing silently through your nose as you gently lean your head backward. Bootsteps draw nearer, a slow, cautious tempo, and you hear the unmistakable click of a firearm being drawn from a holster. You take a deep breath and brace against the back of the carbonite freezer. 

For a moment, silence stretches out, save for the soft breathing through the modulated helmet, and you are just about to relax when a creaking, splintering shadow appears in your periphery. Like creeping spider's legs, long, black gloved fingers begin to wrap around the edges of the carbonite plate that shields you from view, and you know now he has found you. 

With a terrible wrench, the stormtrooper yanks the plating away, and...nothing.

The plate is secured firmly above and below, making it impossible to remove without a specialized tool or vambrace. You were only just slim enough to slide between, and the realization breaks over your blinding panic as the soldier continues to shake and yank on the plate uselessly. He slams his fist against it, the metallic reverberation making your ears ring before storming off.

This time, you wait until his footsteps retreat, past the metal ramp, and then you wait just a short while longer. You wait so long that the cold from the open hatch begins to make your teeth chatter, but you don't move a moment too soon.

The blast of icy wind pouring into the ship nearly takes you out at the knees when you push yourself out of your hiding spot, and you run to the control panel, feeling with your hand for the switch and the buttons you know releases the hatch back up into the ship. Sparks hiss from the top of the panel, and you flinch back, sucking in a breath when the ramp shudders before falling back into the snow. Whatever the stormtrooper had done to the door, it compromised the panel, and you are certainly no engineer.

It’s the night that won’t end, you think miserably, dropping your forehead against the cool metal wall.

A light scraping makes your temples prick with aggravation before you realize it’s coming from beneath the floor. Whirling about and dropping to your knees, you slide your hands along the corrugated metal until your fingers find the latch. When you draw it up, it’s too dark for you to see, but you can hear Din rumbling and sliding in the narrow crawl space, attempting to stand up.

His voice sounds about as smooth as a rusted used engine part. “Why am...I in the floor?” 

The wobbly smile that pulls at your lips holds back a near hysterical bubble of laughter, and you sniffle, wiping your eyes with the tips of your fingered gloves. “It’s a long story,” you say, voice choked and hoarse. You give him your hand, and the two of you work awkwardly to pull him up out of the hole. 

The baby is snuggled against his chest, still swaddled and sleeping, though his coloring is significantly better, you think. You silently lift the child from Din’s arms, letting him turn his helmet this way and that as he takes in the disarray of the hull. His hand rubs the back of his neck before he stops, and you think he must remember his injuries because he pulls his hand back to look at it as if he expects to see blood.

“What happened, _Cyare_?”

By the time you recount the whole of it, Din has managed to fix the compromised panel to get the hatch to close securely, cutting off the arctic winds bellowing into the ship. You tell him of the burns, his injured state, his fever (which he assures you has broken beneath his helmet), the child healing him, and the stormtrooper who overturned the entire ship. 

It didn’t seem like such a mess when you first looked around with your mottled sight, but now you can see crates overturned, supplies and food strewn about. The refresher is nearly torn apart, and upstairs the captain’s quarters is a disaster. All you want is to crawl into bed and sleep without thinking of a time to be up, but you can’t leave this all to Din.

After tucking the baby into his pram, forcing the worry down and away, you prioritize your thoughts, kneeling amidst the medical supplies and frowning in concentration. You’re in the middle of rolling up some gauze, listening to Din shuffle and tinker and try to hide his soreness. You can’t banish the memory of the stormtrooper’s glove, and you turn your face toward where he stands.

“Who are they?”

Din pauses from where he’s trying to reassemble the shower shelf, his helmet tilting toward you and catching the light. You shift to rest back on your heels, dropping the gauze in the crate and gently feeling for the other supplies strewn about. You scoop up several medkits, pulling yourself up by the side of the crate.

“The bounty. It was your bounty, who came aboard, wasn’t it? The stormtrooper?”

He turns back to his task, rehanging the shelf and collecting the few bars of soap and bottles the two of you keep in the shower. When it’s functional and put together once again, he shuts the door and walks carefully over to you, crouching down on the balls of his sock-clad feet.

“Yes.”

You focus on affixing the lid onto the crate, and the two of you are silent for a while, working side by side in companionable and shared space. When the hull is free of mess, you feel yourself sway on your feet. 

Din captures your elbow in a gentle cup of his hand, and you can hear the concern bleeding into his voice when he asks, “When was the last time you slept?”

“I don’t remember,” you puff out a laugh, though there’s no humor in it. You allow him to lead you to the ladder, and climbing up to the second deck feels like an effort fit for the Maker. Din rearranges the overturned mattress and sheets, and when he leaves to adjust the heating system, you check on the sleeping infant again. Rather than dozing like a stone, he turns his tiny face toward your fingers in sleep when you stroke his ear, and your heart feels lighter at the response.

A warm blast of air comes through the vents above, but it is nothing compared to being wrapped up in the arms of the Mandalorian who comes to stand behind you. 

“You’ve been so brave,” he whispers against your ear, his naked face pressing into your hair. You shiver, leaning back against him with nearly all your weight. “I’m so sorry I didn’t protect you, _Cyare_.” 

For a moment that hangs suspended in the cold darkness of the ship, you close your eyes and let every shadow and shape melt away. The secure, warm feeling of his arms, the rhythmic breathing of his chest against your back, the gentle scrape of facial hair against the side of your neck where he buries his face all merge into a kaleidoscope of sensations that make you dizzy. You want to tell him that he shouldn’t apologize for anything. You want to weep that he was right, that this is too much for you, too much responsibility to bear watching him leave and knowing he might not come back.

But you’re too tired for that conversation. In fact, you’re too tired to even express how tired you are, because the next thing you know, you’re waking up in bed, tucked up to your chin with blankets. Your limbs are stiff and sore, your throat and mouth dry as a bone. You can’t tell the time, nor can you decipher how long you’ve been asleep. All you know is that you feel like you’ve slept a millennium, and you’re in bed alone.

When you sit up, your orientation tilts, and you nearly fall forward, sucking in a breath and bracing yourself on the edge of the mattress. You use your hand to touch your stomach, feeling the soft fabric of your sleeping shift, and you wiggle your toes inside thicker woolen socks that are several sizes too big for you. You don’t even remember falling asleep, let alone being dressed for bed, but you know who will.

He’s piloting, fully encased within the cold beskar armor, which you see from the polished gleam that the silver glare of hyperspace reflects. He looks even better than he did before being injured, you think, peeking around the open doors of the cockpit. One ankle of his boot is tossed carelessly over his knee, his arms holding the sleeping child in his lap. His hands are covered in gloves, new ones that share identical orange leather fingers. It’s almost as if he hadn’t been scorched from nearly head to toe, and you blink, standing dumbly in the threshold, feeling out of place and more dreaming than waking.

When he turns his helmet towards you, the chair creaks from the base, and it makes you flinch, reminds you of the stiffness in your limbs. You sit in the copilot seat, perched on the very edge in case of something else terrible happening, but the longer Din seems to gaze at you, the more you come to hear the little one’s soft snores, strong and rhythmic. Your shoulders drop, and you sit back against the leather seat.

“You were talking in your sleep.”

You blink at that, tilting your head curiously at the shadow of your lover, drawing your legs up to curl beside you. Still half drowsy with dreams you don’t remember, you lean your temple against the cold metal siding of the wall and sigh. “Anything interesting?”

“My name.” He pauses, looking down at the child. “Venka, and Corde.”

You wonder, if the child had a name, if you would have said his, too.

“Who was it, Din?” you whisper, slowly wringing your hands together in your lap. Now that you are in hyperspace, you know you are safe, you can be whole. His wounds are, after all, more healed than before he was injured, even though there may be missing pieces of your solace of mind, now. “The bounty. He didn’t...he didn’t seem-”

“He was a member of an elite and specialized task force,” Din’s voice is rough, cold, and hoarse, and you wonder what he is imagining as he describes his bounty. A shiver runs along your back, the planes and curves he has touched, and you bite your lip. He draws one forefinger along the tiny wrinkles of the baby’s brow, more gentle and tender than you’ve ever seen. “A stormtrooper raised to burn whole clans and cities and villages to nothing.” 

You think of the oddly shaped object he was carrying, the sloshing of liquid you now know was some kind of fuel for incineration, and you shudder at what could have happened to you and the child. What did happen to Din.

“That’s why you were so hurt,” you whisper, and he nods once.

“Surprised me,” he mutters, dropping his hand away from the baby to flex his fingers over the armrest of the pilot’s chair. “Damn armor blends into the snow.” 

The two of you sit quietly, and you consider this new information with the foggy memory of the soldier who overturned the Crest. Still, something doesn’t make sense to you. Two slotted pieces that don’t quite match, that won’t fit, and you can’t sit still. “I don’t understand,” you finally heave a sigh, brow furrowing. “Why does...why does the Empire want one of their own?”

Din shrugs lightly beneath his gleaming pauldrons. “I don’t ask questions.” 

_Of course not._

You breathe noisily through your nose. Bracing your hands upon your legs, you sit forward, narrowing your eyes. “It’s important to understand what we’re doing if this is to release us from underneath their thumb, don’t you think?” you ask quietly, your patience a living, wriggling thing.

“What _I_ ’m doing,” Din corrects, looking away from you then. “You will stay far away from it. That was the deal.”

You’re on your feet then, fast and striking, and you shove the heel of your hand into the back of his chair so it swings his helmet towards you.

“That deal was broken when I almost lost you,” you whisper, your voice wobbling on the painful knot choking your throat. You force any threat of tears back, steeling every soft part of your body into an unshakable fortress. Din’s shoulders draw up in defense, but you drop your other hand to the side of his cloth covered neck, loving and warm. You cannot see his face, but you know he’s holding your gaze. “This isn’t just about you, or the child, Din. Your actions have more consequences than just losing your own life, now.” 

His chest plate begins to rise and fall like a shining, silvery wave, churning in the midst of a storm, and you are ready for him to use his size, his presence to push back against you. You are surprised when he does not, when he lays one hand over the child asleep on his lap and presses the crown of his helmet back into the headrest, presenting. 

“What do you want from me?” he rasps, harsh and angry. Perhaps the anger once would have made you timid, but you recognize his fear for what it is. You grab his hand that threatens to choke the life out of the armrest, leaning over him until you can press your brow to his helmet.

“Teach me to fight.” You hear him suck in air, holding his breath, and you lean firmer to ground him. “To defend myself, properly. To defend our children,” your voice catches on the last word, blinking against your blind, stinging eyes. You squeeze his fingers as tightly as you can, dragging air into your lungs as if drowning. “I don’t want to hide like that. Ever again.”

Din drops his head forward, almost pushing you away in his attempt to press the visor of his helmet against the softness of your belly. You drape your arms around his neck, rubbing against the newly healed expanse of his back. You feel his words more than hear them, the modulator muffled against the fabric of your gown. “I should have protected you better.” 

Your hands are not gentle when you slide them beneath his chin, pulling his visor upward to look at you. “We have to do this _together_. It cannot be one-sided,” you murmur, feeling his hand resting on the slope of your waist. You slip your fingers beneath the lip of his helmet, feeling newly shaven skin on his cheek. “Who will protect you?”

He chuckles, dropping his visor again against your stomach, and you feel him sink against you this time when he sighs. You rest against him, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand while the other lays warm against the back of his shirt. The two of you enjoy the silence, companionable and soft until a little gurgle perks you up.

When Din sits back, the baby’s eyes blink open, bleary and heavy, and you drop to your knees with a soft coo, kissing his brow. Din’s hand caresses the back of your head as the two of you marvel over the waking baby on lap, an entire wave of gratefulness nearly drowning you both. The child holds out a shaking three fingered hand out until he can grasp the Mandalorian’s forefinger. 

“You can’t do this alone,” you whisper again, your heart in your throat as you look upon your little one. “Not now. Not anymore.” 

“I know,” Din whispers, and you think he must know the sacrifice of the child, the gift he has been given in being pulled back from that hollow darkness, because he sits a little taller now, tilting his visor toward you. “You’re right.”

Your hands take the baby when he passes him to you, and those familiar petal ears begin to lift in happiness, his mouth smacking hungrily as you shoulder him, standing on wobbly feet. Din turns from you to the controls, pulling his navigation up with the lazy knowledge of a pilot who has crossed thousands of parsecs. 

“So you will teach me?” you ask, leaning against the side of the pilot’s chair. The child begins tugging at your collar for attention, but your sight is trained on the sharpened silver of the beskar.

“No.” His voice is brusque enough to drop your heart like a stone, but you feel blindsided with excitement when he glances up at you and says, “But I know someone who can. Ever been to Sorgan?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mando'a Translations:
> 
> Cyare - Beloved

**Author's Note:**

> Mando'a Translations:
> 
> Cyare - Beloved


End file.
